RAID

Redundant Arrays of Independent Disks

What exactly is a RAID?

RAID is basically drives stacked on top of each other like a cake with layers that can share their data together.

What does RAID do? Now imagine that the cake are you hard drives and that frosting is the data. As you can see that the 2 layer cake has the same data as each other. Now pretend that something eats a layer of the cake (Virus.) Now is it was a single layer cake all the frosting would be gone but since there is more than one layer the same frosting remains.

So basically a RAID, with more hard drives can use one of the hard drives to act as a backup in case something happens though you lose potential data

Why should I use RAID?

In some cases you shouldnt.

Luckily there are different levels of raid that we can use. For everyone's personal benefit.

RAID level 0 This level is not actually considered a type of raid, and is fairly common. Its not RAID because this level is not redundant in the slightest and only uses one driver. Therefore the computer has no protection from a wiped out hard drive. It Works by stripping the data and Spreading the data between the Drives.
Drive 1 Block 1 Block 2 Block 3 1 3 5 Drive 2 2 4 6

Pros: Faster (doesnt repeat all data.) No loss of data capacity Cons: Not redundant.

Raid Level 1

Basically one drive mirrors the other, however this slows down the writing time by a . Mirrors the data in-between drives.

Pros: Completely Redundant

Cons: Writing speed Takes time to change.
Block 1 Block 2 Drive 1 1 2 Drive 2 1 2

Need at least 2 drivers

Halves possible data.
Block 3 3 3

Raid level 0+1

This Raid strips, then mirrors combining Raid 0 and Raid 1. So you have the quickness of 0 with the redundancy of 1
Pros: Redundant Better performance Cons: Expensive (4 Drives or more arent cheap.) Less effective data then if you didnt combine hard drives Drive 1 Drive 2 Drive 3 Drive 4 Block 1 Block 2 Block 3 1 3 5 2 4 6 1 3 5 2 4 6

Raid level 1+0

Basically the same as RAID level 0 + 1 except that the data is mirrored then stripped making the data a little more protected.
Pros: Redundant, Better performance Cons: Expensive, less effective data.

Drive 1 Block 1 Block 2 Block 3 1 3 5

Drive 2 1 3 5

Drive 3 2 4 6

Drive 4 2 4 6

Raid level 5
Works on binary, and using odd and even numbers, Im not quite sure. But if one of the drives is damaged it will actually repair itself.
Pros: Better array performance Redundent. Can perform a hot swap. (Switch hard drives while computer is operating. Cons: Need 3 drives When it rebuilds your performance will degrade.

Drive 1 Block 1 Block 2 Block 3 1 3 P

Drive 2 2 P 5

Drive 3 P 4 6

There was also Raid level 2, 3, and 4 but they didnt work out, so they were never released.
So you could say they failed

Not that badly however.

To sum it up, most people have RAID 1 or RAID 0, which is all they really need. But for any small business and bigger you might need RAID 5, RAID 1+0, or RAID 0+1 to protect your data.

The history of RAID.

Or at least what I could find.

Patented 1987
Built in 1989

Updated several times

Thats all I could find. Until I made these updates.

The History of RAID revamped.

1956 IBM officially announces the RAMAC 305 1961 Ampex develops helical scanning video recording, which well later be adapted for high-capacity tape backup. 1962 IBM Advanced disk file used one head for each disk surface, which eliminates the need for compressed air to position heads. 1973 IBMs hermetically sealed Winchester hard disks become the standard design for disk drives.

1979 Philips demonstrates optical storage drive technology as part of a joint venture with control data corp. 1988 David A. Patterson leads a team that defines RAID standards for improved performance, reliability. 1995 EMC develops the concept of networkattached storage

1998 Gigabit Ethernet becomes a formal IEEE standard.

The end of my revamped history

Some RAID release times.

Raid 0 was released on march 5, 2004

Raid 1 was released on June 5, 2007 Raid 5 was released in 1995, on June 8.
Raid 1+0 was released on June 7, 2007

Who makes RAID?

IstarUSA StarTech

High Point Areca

SYBA Rosewill Accusys Addonics

3ware
Adaptec

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&DEPA=0&Order=B ESTMATCH&Description=raid http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/87093/The_Story_So_Far http://www.cuddletech.com/veritas/raidtheory/x62.html

http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/87093/The_Story_So_Far

http://www.staff.uni-mainz.de/neuffer/scsi/what_is_raid.html http://compreviews.about.com/od/storage/l/aaRAIDPage1.htm

http://www.pcguide.com/ref/hdd/perf/raid/whyShould-c.html

THE END